Telford Vice's Blog, page 383

Titans strike blow for gender equality

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

The Titans continued to strike blows for women in the mostly male world of cricket yesterday when they named Patricia Kambarami as their chief operating officer.

Kambarami, who has served as the franchise’s marketing and events manager since October, 2003, which followed her work on that year’s World Cup, follows in the footsteps of Elise Lombard.

Lombard, to date the only female chief executive of a SA franchise, also the Titans, died of a heart attack on A...

Rattlesnake, banker’s pinstripes are SA’s unidentical spin twins

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

Simon Harmer is a rattlesnake trapped in an off-spinner’s body. Dane Piedt is as consistent as a banker’s pinstripes. Only one of them is likely to feature when SA’s test squad for the tour to Sri Lanka in July is announced next week. Which will it be?

That will depend on what SA’s next test captain, whose name will also be revealed next week, and coach Russell Domingo need the new man to do.

Should a holding bowler be required, the lesser turning Piedt – al...

Who cares if cricket is fixed?

http://www.GOcricket.com -http://www.gocricket.com/Who-cares-if...

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

Do we care whether cricket is fixed? If it is, does that change anything? Dare we believe that the game is about winning and losing when we know it is about cash?

Here in the rarefied ranks of the press we need no excuse to fly into a fuss about match-fixing, which for us is next to satanism. But we do not engage with sport at the emotional level of peo...

‘Match-fixing is legal in SA’

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

Crimes against cricket commonly called match-fixing, which is back in the spotlight following revelations by Lou Vincent, are legal in SA.

Two weeks ago, former New Zealand batsman Vincent said the Champions League T20 that was played in SA in October, 2012 had been stained by the scourge. However, even if that claim was to be proven it seems the perpetrators would not attract the authorities’ attention.

“There is no specific law in our country against match...

Beyond the beard could lurk South Africa’s next Test captain

http://www.GOcricket.com – http://www.gocricket.com/columns/telford-vice/South-African-cricket–Is-Hashim-Amla-South-Africas-next-Test-captain/articleshow/35373657.cms

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

Is Hashim Amla a Test captain? As with much about this magnificent player for whom cricket is not everything, how can we tell? But we know this: he has put up the hand that shall not sweat and made himself available for the position.

For days, whispers swirled that Amla had reconsidered his previous stanc...

Amla’s captaincy candidacy confirmed

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

Murmurs of Hashim Amla’s candidacy as SA’s next test captain were confirmed yesterday when his agent, Ismail Kajee, told Times Media, “Yes, Hashim has made himself available.”

However, figures close to the process of appointing Graeme Smith’s successor have admitted to being unsure of “how serious Hashim is” about taking on the cares of captaincy.

Besides, Cricket SA (CSA) have been shot in this movie before. As SA’s designated vice-captain in the short form...

You want one hundred years of solitude? Good luck

Sunday Times Lifestyle

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

“The day shit is worth money,” Gabriel Garcia Marquez famously said, “poor people will be born without assholes.” Gabo had a point. So did Garbo, as in Greta, when she famously said: “I want to be left alone.”

Rich and poor alike are born without smartphones, tablets and laptops. Once they acquire them – and they will – they will never again be left alone.

Anyone who acquires a tattoo will never again be naked, but ink squirted under the skin does...

Matchfixing malaise includes SA

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

The biggest matchfixing scandal to hit cricket since Hansie Cronje’s exposure as a crook involves SA, according to evidence Lou Vincent has given to the game’s anti-corruption police.

Former New Zealand batsman Vincent has reportedly told the International Cricket Council that matches in the Champions League T20 (CLT20) played in SA in October, 2012 were tainted by matchfixing. London’s Daily Telegraph writes that Vincent says he knows of dodgy dealings in...

De Villiers raises ungloved hand for test captaincy

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

AB de Villiers wants to be SA’s next test captain, but if he lands the position the gloves will be off – the wicketkeeping gloves, that is.

“I would love to do it,” De Villiers said in an interview conducted in India, where he is playing for the Royal Challengers Bangalore, and posted yesterday on ESPNCricinfo. “I am certainly ready to take over the test captaincy.

“I wouldn’t like to do the keeping job if I am captain; it will be very difficult to juggle al...

Form follows function in selectors’ minds

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

If form mattered more than anything else in the national selectors’ discussions ahead of SA’s tour to Sri Lanka in July, places in the squad would have to be found for Stiaan van Zyl, Dane Piedt, Heino Kuhn and Hardus Viljoen.

Justin Ontong, Simon Harmer, Henry Davids and Craig Alexander would also have a case for selection if players were picked purely on performance.

Those eight cricketers either topped or were second on the runscoring or the wicket-taking...